Bihar polls: Muslims hold key to first phase

The stage is set for the six-phased Bihar Assembly elections. And on the eve of the first part of the mammoth exercise, it isn't difficult to comprehend why Bihar chief minister Nitish Kumar has been giving a wide berth to his Gujarat counterpart Narendra Modi.

Muslims hold the key in the majority of the 47 Bihar assembly seats, spread over eight districts in the state, where votes will be cast on Thursday.

In 25 constituencies of the poll-bound Kishanganj, Purnia, Katihar, Araria, Supaul, Madhepura, Saharsa and Madhubani districts, the population of Muslim voters exceeds 20 per cent. In fact, it is more than 40 per cent in 13 constituencies. And in constituencies such as Kochadhaman in Kishanganj and Amour in Purnia, Muslim voters account for more than 74 per cent of the electorate.

That is why all the parties - right from the ruling coalition of the Janata Dal-United (JD-U) and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) to the Rashtriya Janata Dal-Lok Janshakti Party (RJD-LJP) combine and the Congress - have left no stone unturned in wooing the minority community during their poll campaigns.

Significantly, this is the first election in the country since the verdict of the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad High Court on the Ayodhya dispute. All eyes are, therefore, riveted on how the minority voters will respond in this poll.

The ruling JD-U and the BJP, which had won 20 and 13 seats, respectively, out of these 47 in the last assembly elections, hope to repeat their performance. For his part, RJD president Lalu Prasad is aspiring to regain his toehold in the area dominated by Muslim voters.

Until the last Assembly elections, Lalu had held sway in the Seemanchal-Mithilanchal area by capitalising on his 'Muslim-Yadav (MY) combine' formula - a runaway winner. But his hold on the Muslim voters slipped in the October 2005 polls.

The trend continued in the parliamentary polls last year when his party failed to win even a single Lok Sabha seat from any of the eight districts. The NDA captured all seats from the region, except Kishanganj which was won by the Congress.

The NDA leaders believe that the Muslims will once again vote for their candidates, primarily because of the slew of minority welfare schemes launched by Nitish's government. Political observers believe that this factor led to BJP leader L.K. Advani being kept away from campaigning during the first phase.

On the other hand, Lalu is also hoping for a revival of his fortunes. At every election rally in the Muslim- dominated constituencies, he has harped on Nitish's alliance with the BJP. "Nitish is playing into the hands of the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS)," he said, adding: "The minorities won't be duped by his facade of secularism."

Lalu is optimistic that the scenario will be different this time. "Ram Vilas Paswan and I had fought the polls separately in 2005, which had benefited Nitish," he told a rally recently. "But Nitish will not get that chance again," he added.

But the presence of a stronger Congress, which has put up its candidates in all the 47 seats, may upset his applecart. Aspiring to emerge as a viable alternative to the voters again, the Congress is trying its best to win back the Muslim voters. The party has given tickets to 46 Muslim candidates for the 243-member Assembly polls in the state.

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, AICC general secretary Rahul Gandhi, Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit, excricketer Mohammad Azharuddin and Bhojpuri filmstar Ravi Kissen have all campaigned for the party candidates trying their luck in the first phase.

Both Sonia and Manmohan hit out at the Nitish government for its "failure" to utilise the central funds meant for minority welfare. Rahul spoke about Nitish's longstanding alliance with the BJP to wean Muslim votes away.

But amid the jostling for the minority community vote, leaders from different political parties appear to have overlooked another very important issue. They have made only passing references to the worst floods in Bihar's history during their poll campaigns in the region.

The Kosi flood, caused by a breach in an embankment at Kusaha in Nepal on August 18, 2008, had claimed 530 lives and rendered 33.92 lakh people homeless in Madhepura, Supaul, Saharsa, Purnia and Araria. All these districts will go to the polls in the first phase.

"It was one of the biggest tragedies in Bihar's history, but the parties barely mentioned it during their poll campaigns, which ended yesterday (Tuesday)," Suman Sourabh, a villager from Narpatganj, said. "Even the Prime Minister, who had earlier declared the Kosi flood a 'national calamity', did not broach the subject at his recent election rally. Instead, he talked about the misuse of funds by the Nitish government," he added.

Many flood victims such as Sourabh feel that the Centre and the state government have been playing a blame game over the Kosi reconstruction issue for the past two years.

Nitish said the Centre had provided financial assistance to other states affected by natural calamities, but it had ignored Bihar's genuine demand. The JD-U's manifesto for the polls says that it would continue to put pressure on the Centre for the Kosi rehabilitation and reconstruction package. But the people of the area seem to have lost hope.

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